Bulgarian Nationalist Party 'Ataka' Loses Another MP

Ataka leader Volen Siderov has faced accusations of forcing party members to sign promissory notes to "cement"their committment to the formation. Photo by didimtoday.com

Bulgaria's nationalist party Ataka is about to part ways with another one of its Members of Parliament, Stoyan Ivanov, who filed a request to leave the ranks of the far-right on July 08.

"I am leaving Ataka with great displeasure. I am leaving because I am turning into a hostage to a person who, willingly or not, is reanimating Ahmed Dogan (leader of ethnic Turkish party Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS, editor's note)", Ivanov told Focus news agency on Saturday.

According to Ivanov, the reason for his departure was that he felt he no longer belonged to a party propelled by the personal career aspirations of one individual, with the concept of the political formation pushed to the back burner.

Ivanov admitted that almost all members of Ataka, including him, had been forced to sign promissory notes, insisting that they had believed the thing to be a pure formality, all the while blindly trusting the leader, Volen Siderov .

In Ivanov's words, Siderov assured Ataka members that what they were signing was pro-forma promissory notes which would only be used as a deterrent against the disintegration of the party.

On May 25, Ataka's parliamentary ranks shrank to a total of 17 MPs,  after Valentin Nikolov, Kiril Gumnerov and Ognyan Peychev announced they were withdrawing from the party in protest against the incident in which Ataka activists, including MPs clashed with praying Muslims in the central Sofia mosque.

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